(Yankee) Hoarding - Part Seven - "Promised Land"

(Yankee) Hoarding

Part Seven

"Promised Land"

            Summarial Hoard... and I.

            Hope that it has been useful to open and expand the vantage of hoard and carry that expansion over to hoarding and hoarder.  And... carrying this too... to the hoardettes’ finger pointing and witch hunting hoard precept... to demonstrate THAT hoard view... without even a slight suggestion that one alters this last (hoardette view) hoard

Vision plight.  Too.

            No I do not want an adopted crowd forming at now recognized to be vital and/or mature hoard sites especially foisting an “I know” aura upon that site.

            No.

            No.  Just stay in the tacky world of finger pointing at hoard horror.  Drop the ‘Yankee’.  Move out West (west of the Hudson River corridor).  Clean the garage.  Out.  (There is nothing in there that is ‘good’).  Then go away.  I will promise to personally professionally be ‘one of hoard’ in your behalf.  One... is done.

            Go.

            What if a (Yankee) hoard hoarded ‘old clocks’ (“timepieces”)?  Would that?  No.  It would not.  If their alarms all went bong, bong, bong at once would that?  No.  A stupid dance like the car going beep, beep, beep when the key is turned.  If one found fifty-seven old timepieces gathered by one old man quietly over a very fifty-seven years with each stored in its own crude protective box to preserve each timepiece in its ‘as found’ state for the only reason that it assured the hoard that each component of the hoard was carefully included; fairly included; ‘equal to the others’.  This would be a problem right from a ‘get-go’:  “What do ... DO with them”.  A ‘this hoard’?  And one would not think of calling on anyone who would know.  Anyway.  “WHAT is there to THINK ABOUT?  Cleaning up a MESS?”

            That is okay

            As long as one goes

            Away.

            I get to a (all) hoard before the ‘you do’.  I know hoard.  Good hoard.  “Well”.  I get there first.  All the time.  “Boxes of clocks”.  That is an accurate hoard description presented by a hoardette who hastens to ‘clean out’.  “Them” she called... them:  To clean out them, a physical action based on mental evaluation... of a hoard.  “Fine”.  If the whole had been neatly ‘fixed-up’ (restored) and wall hung tick-tocking.  Bonging.  In the front hall, living room, dining room and... the other rooms of responsible (sterile) domestic management, let me say... ‘a different story’.  Yes.  Just nod.  “Yes”.

            These boxed clocks were “stored” (stuffed) all over the outer borderlands of the property.  Each box shut up tight; a ‘put in’ ‘old clock’ and ‘never looked at again’.  I found it a very exciting

            Hoard.

            I did not count the boxes of boxed up old clocks until I stored the full hoard in a section of a warehouse and... sort of had the time to do that to ‘them’.  Before that was too hectic.  Fussy... the family was about ‘getting the house ready’.  For what?  Who cares what idiots do.  Right?  Just nod.  I had to “do” the rest of the hoard too.  What?  You think there was only one hoard in there?  Do you see (understand)?  It is going to be a while before you can do hoard well... too.  I don’t expect you to show up.  I do expect you to be ‘cleaning out’ badly for the rest of your life.  Bricklaying?

            Sort of.  Right?  Hoard is a sort of bricklaying.  You know:  Like making a patio.  With this including “good job” and... “bad job”.

            The vast majority of hoard never makes it to ‘bad job’ or ... ‘good job’ “clean out”.  In most cases good... very good and “GREAT” hoard is not identified as, even, being hoard.  For example, on property ‘walk through’ tours, I am often shown a “collection”.  In most cases this would pass toward ‘accumulation’ and never come near a ‘collection’.  Behind ‘accumulation’ is the safer... border land:  Hoard.  What ever it is (‘old clocks in boxes’, for example)... it is... actually.... hoard.  Is it good hoard... or bad hoard?  Grand hoard or piss poor hoard?  Yes... girls... skip rope and... skip rope with the girls?  Boys?  This is why one is not there.  To be of ‘go away’ is the easiest hoard solution.  Yes; “cool” and “pretty much of a problem” isn’t it; ‘hoard’?

            Have I gummed this all up for you?  Or have I suggested and shown that (Yankee) hoard is one of the grand treasures; alternative asset allocations, of old New England?  And do I care what you ‘think’... about (Yankee) hoard.

            Well... for the last I don’t.  My ‘nose’ for hoard has me scampering around the (Yankee) borderlands perpetually (an inexhaustible supply of hoard).  And, simply, no one is there except the those-of-one-with-hoard and

            The confused... hands thrown up in despair... maelstrom trapped hoard swirl ‘victims’ of ‘hoard’.  Yes:  There we go... ‘victims’ of ‘hoard’.  In Yankee New England.  That makes everyone feel better about (Yankee) hoarding:  Victims.

            If this force has its way... all of the old worn ‘wide board’ pine floors of (Yankee) New England... will be sanded.

            Varnished.

            And shown off.

            All after “THE PLACE” is “CLEANED OUT” (“You wouldn’t BELIEVE what it was LIKE in there.”).  It was a good thing I moved all of those fifty-seven boxed up old clocks out of that ‘place’.  I, removing hoard, rescued ...victims.  The place was cleaned out.  The floors have been sanded

            Varnished

            And shown off.

            I was invited on a ‘house tour’ “TO SEE”.

            I didn’t go.

            I have written... in this blog... two long stories about hoard... with these stories never mentioning hoard or I... ever saying ‘hoard’.  They are both vast stories recording singular work (antiques dealing / rare book dealing) events that I actually did AND consider these to be... representative enough... to make a point of

            Being worthy to be told?

            Did I make a mistake doing that; recording the tales?  Not really

            I guess.  Who cares?  Right?

            This last is particularly adroit when one such as I confounds that this (Yankee) hoarding will never be ‘made out’ anyway.  Your in-battle (hoard battle) will never take place.  You will attend no hoard war.  No fight on the front line of a ‘big one’ (a Yankee warship of multiple layered hoard).  You will not be the ‘broom clean’ at the ‘empty’ end.

            In the first story; “The Crows Nest” (44 chapters/posts), the hoard is antiques with multiple hoard... multiple hoard locations, settings and ... multiple hoard ‘alternative asset allocation’ managers.  (Yankee) hoard interweaves with (Yankee) hoard.  It lives, it moves, in (Yankee) New England.  The story is about very large moving hoards; almost too big to be discerned as hoard.  But that is what all of ...it... is; hoards.

            The second story; “Can B. Worth” (37 chapters/posts), is a ‘rare book’ story that is an ‘inside hoard’ vantage.  “He dies in his hoard”.  For real.  It is a story about hoard and it’s fight against the ‘sanded floor’ people... from the inside hoard vantage.  Again this tale is, too, ‘almost to big to be discerned as hoard’.  But it is that: (Yankee) hoard.

            At first contact with the hoards of these tales, and through my whole relationship, I understood these ‘tales’ are (Yankee) hoard.  By the time I arrived at the hoards in the tales... I knew hoard very well.  For an example of my formative exposure to hoard, I suggest the much less cumbersome story; “The Codman Place” (7 chapters/posts).  That is a splendid story of how I came to hoard; the many hoards ‘in there’ and the nuance of each hoard... from when I was very young at this (Yankee) hoard.   Too.

            For the final closure, it should be obvious... but I must speak of it:  Yes I am a hoarder.  That is... I am ‘of hoard’.  Particularly... ‘of (Yankee) hoard’.  And I am very good at it.  Well practiced.  So well practiced that one would ‘never know’.  And that is the way it is supposed to be; the way (Yankee) hoarding... is.  I live in hoard.  I will die in hoard.  The ‘sanded floor’ people are the enemy.  They are of little consequence... except to themselves, of course.  That ‘they’ have closed out ‘hoard’.  Themselves.  “Sterile” visions is a ‘their best’.  No fifteen years of old seed packages for they have no (messy-self made) garden.  No hoard of shoes because the... accumulation... of their shoes are ‘too cheap’ (of quality and cost... in addition to, too, NOT being ‘Yankee footwear’) to be worthy of the title ‘hoard’.  It is a sad omen when one cannot even accomplish a hoard of shoes.  But that is the way those (“new New England”) people like it; sand the floors then varnish them.

            Admire them.

The Crow's Nest Epilogue Blood Farm 12

Epilogue Blood Farm 12

            The final venue for my personal and professional hunt for particles from the Blood Farm estate content’s… empty black hole domino down fall off the edge of the earth Alice stated “then it is gone”… has continued only in the choppy waters of chance at coastal Maine antiques shops.

            The actual farm buildings, 100 acre property and untouched Federal house were quickly and quietly sold through the “trusted” and its lawyer.  It sold to become a second “farm in the country” home an older “well established” couple from the Portland area residential coast (Cape Elizabeth) who have words like “Portland Symphony” ALWAYS associated with their name and… never were seen at Uncle’s auction.  They… “gutted the place” meaning they took out the old wood and piled it in the yard where it “DON’T WORRY:  WE’LL GET RID OF IT” disappeared.  Alice’s kitchen, the jewel of the first floor, was stripped to “the shell”.  The rest of the first floor, including the original “old red” painted woodwork and large fireplace WITH the original “1809 BLOOD” name in chalk on a board behind a ceiling beam… was covered over by commercial plaster boarding that was screwed into this original woodwork.  The upstairs “unfinished” “attic” was converted to “four bedrooms, a laundry and two bathrooms”.  A third floor “finished, lighted and insulated” attic was created above.  A bathroom was also “made” on the first floor.  A house that “NEVER HAD A TOILET” (Alice) now has three.  One old home buff I know said “there is not a quarter inch of original wood left in that house”.  The most highly spoken of loss was the removal of the built-in step back pewter cupboard in the kitchen that was removed whole, put out in the front yard leaning against a maple tree and … was gone the next day.  Therefore, the whole Blood Farm is now “then it is gone” including the removal of the car shed “too close to the road” AND the filling in with stone of the TWO original water wells in the yard.  Blood Farm, today, is… “beautifully restored”.

            I have never been there.  I, also, have never seen the seven, again.  They took their purchases, including …A… “grandfather’s clock”… back to Ohio (?) and have never been seen again.  I have not seen the fire chief again.  I have not seen or heard from the lawyer again.  Margaret’s and her mother’s house was converted to small rental apartments.  When passing through the village by chance, I glance at it.  I glance at the top window where the  Crow’s Nest was.

            Otherwise I hunt the choppy waters of chance in the coastal antique shops…. and a little bit inland flush with the latitude of Uncle’s Auctions.  The likelihood is very small that anything went NORTH of Uncle’s.  My most poignant example is that… on the same latitude with Uncle’s and just over the New Hampshire state line… in a locked case of a better quality long established and knowing antiques dealer’s store… I chanced upon a wooden ware tankard that “LOOKS LIKE THE ONE ON THE Blood Farm TABLE IN THE ATTIC”.  At $850 sticker priced I asked to “see it”.  “It MUST BE the one.” My mind spoke.  Turning it over I found a large and very original “B” carved in the bottom.  “BLOOD” my mind spoke.  “I NEVER LOOKED AT THE TANKARD’S BOTTOM!!!!!” my mind spoke again.  I was… too busy with the tea table and “never did”.  “YOU IDIOT!!!!!” my mind finalized.  The tankard was for sale for years.  “I’M SURE IT’S THE SAME ONE!” I remain to this day.  “Yeah right” is what my check book kept saying.  One day I went in the store and it was gone.  I asked.  She said “I sold it”.

            Like that tankard, I discovered a …small blue seaweed mocha decorated yellow ware mug… in a locked case of a better quality long established and knowing antiques dealer’s store… on the coast.  “THAT’S THE ONE FROM THE AUCTION!!!!  THE SEVEN DIDN’T BUY IT?????” my mind screamed.  I asked to see it.  The case was opened, I picked up the cup noting the $450 price tag and… discovered THE tiny sliver of blue mocha decorated yellow ware… inside the cup.  “I bought it at that auction” she said.  “I had to pay a lot.  Remember those people in front were buying EVERYTHING.”

            “I do” I said.  I did.  I had just assumed they bought this.  They hadn’t.  In this shop for sale… it was “too much”.  I rolled the sliver in my finger tips, put it back in the cup and watched the cup return to its shelf in the locked case and… the case locked.  After that I visited the cup when I was in the area.  I never handled it again.  One day I went in and it was gone.  I asked after it.  “I sold it.”  she said.

            “Remember how it had that little sliver of a decorated yellow ware piece in it?  I really liked that.” I said.

            “Oh.” she said.  “They didn’t want that.  It’s around here somewhere.” she continued and started searching in the clutter on her sales counter between us.  “HERE it is.” she said holding it up in her finger tips.  “Here.  You can have it”.

The End.

The Crow's Nest Epilogue Blood Farm 11

Epilogue Blood Farm 11

            Paying too much and/or “getting nothing” does not an antiquarian dealer’s living… make. Lying awake noting decades of professional and personal involvement in two estates harboring three old women and one cuckoo sea captain who all die only to have their affairs taken over by a lawyer with an iron financial grip on everything including the estate “rubbish” AND recognizing that… this includes me only if I pay… and preferably pay… even more.  To wind up in a rural Maine farm yard with a handyman fire chief who… purloins the antique cars from these estates and announces to the auction hall he’s “buying” this or that… assures I am wasting my time and money… should I actually spend any of that latter. 

            After repeatedly dressing myself down with these FACTS… I still obsessed over the whole of the two estates by including the irrational notion I would “find the tea table”, micro reading of auction listings endeavoring to identify “it’s from Blood Farm”, gossip mongering of ANY mention of ANY iota related to these estates among the local trade, driving futility north to “SEE” (preview) only to drive futility home… in the dark “with nothing” and vigilantly patrolling the better coastal antique shops hoping to find a “that came from the Blood Farm sale” RELIC to …stand before in a dream trance shock.  Two options divine.  They are …not rewarded for one’s efforts… or are rewarded.

            The sudden occurrence of the latter… and the absoluteness of that occurrence… nearly… “finally ends” this tale.  Continuing my preview vigilance of driving “futility north” I …after over two years… went robotically up, down and around the Uncle’s auction hall’s selection of “TONIGHT’S AUCTION” rubbish only to come upon, half way down a back hall wall table and half in the dark, a flat cardboard tray made from a cardboard box holding… an “of the period” (1810-1815) and completely original untouched and undisturbed New England patent timepiece (a “banjo clock”).  I looked down on the clock in the tray box.  The bottom glass was old, real and cracked at one corner.  The center glass was old, real, perfect and said “PATENT” at the bottom.  The decorative brass for the  sides of the case… were loose in the box under the clock.  The face was old, real and undisturbed as were the clock hands.  An old brass eagle top finial was loose in the tray box too.  I stared.  I stared harder without changing my “I wandered here” slouched inspecting position.  I moved on, with racing thoughts, to the front of the hall.  I stood before another table of rubbish and had an internal staff meeting.

            My mind raced:  “That’s the banjo clock from Blood Farm.  There WAS one in there.  I SAW it but I DIDN’T LOOK at it.  It was on a wall.  Hanging.  Downstairs.  WHERE?.  WHY DIDN’T I LOOK AT IT!  It has to be.  HOW COULD THESE IDIOTS GET A REAL BANJO CLOCK.  They don’t even know what one IS!  OH MY GOD IT’S THE REAL BLOOD FARM BANJO CLOCK WHAT AM I GOING TO DO!  DO SOMETHNG YOU IDIOT”.  My response was to slowly circle the auction hall and come back before the tray boxed clock.  I stared at it assuring myself “IT IS REAL”.  I reached down and slightly lifted the case bottom.  It was VERY heavy meaning… “IT HAS THE WEIGHT” my mind screamed.  I paused.  I did not look around.  I carefully opened the bottom door of painted glass within its fragile wood frame.  “IT’S REAL” came another metal scream.  There was a small and crumpled paper bag in the bottom right inner corner.  I picked that out.  THE REAL CLOCK KEY WAS UNDER THAT. “GREAT” my mind screamed.  The bag had something in it.  I opened it and took out a small handful of … old newspaper clipping about “banjo clocks” that were wrapped around eleven business cards of old …Boston and north… coastal antiques dealers… each carrying a hand written note of … how much that dealer would… PAY FOR THE CLOCK.  “ALICE” my mind screamed.  There is was right in my hand Alice’s very careful and methodically saved paper trail about hers and ANYONE’S interest in the clock beginning with her mother’s era and an offer of “$300” in “1929” from a “Beacon Street” dealer onward to a final $2500 from a well known, respected and DEAD coastal Maine dealer in “1965”.  “REAL” my mind screamed.  “ALICE” it screamed.  “BLOOD FARM” it screamed.  I acted.

            I floated slowly away from the “tray lot” of the “old broken clock”.  I floated around the hall watching.  NO ONE …AT ALL… “looked at it”.  NO ONE.  I continued to act.  I found a fellow “have known a very long time” coastal woman dealer who attends “ALL OF HIS” sales and:

            “Are you staying for the sale?”

            “Oh yes.”

            “Would you bid a lot for me”

            “What lot?”

            “The broken clock.  On the table in the back” I said gesturing to the back hall dimness.  She looked back there.  “I’ll pay you ten percent.  Start it at $150.”

            “Show me.” she said.

            We went back to the tray box with the clock on the table, stood before it for a half minute and walked back up front.  “Sure” she said.  “I hope they put it up early.  I don’t want to wait all night.”

            “Make ‘em put it up.” I said.  “If it goes over fifteen hundred I’ll take over.”

            “Fifteen hundred?  For that?”

            “You’ll get your commission.”

            “What is it?”

            “An old clock” I said.  What is it really?  It is a perfect undisturbed “WILLARD’S PATENT” New England banjo clock “timepiece” “UNTOUCHED” and descending in its single owner family estate known as Blood Farm from the DAY THEY BROUGHT it to the farm until THE DAY one of the clean out crew… what?

            The day one of the clean out crew took it off the wall, discovered it was very fragile and VERY heavy so… quickly set it down and most probably completely wrapped it in an old towel or blanket after never inspecting it and, eventually, carefully took it to “A TRUCK”.  That truck was evidently an Uncle’s truck that went to the auction barn where it was removed and “stored” after not being opened or inspected and… remained that way for TWO YEARS at least until chanced upon in the still towel wrapped barn stored state to be unwrapped, “looked at” by …people who wouldn’t know a real banjo clock from ANYTHING.  Then it was… “tray lot boxed” “for sale” and put “out on a table” to be “SOLD” in “TONIGHT’S AUCTION”.  To me.

            It was.  It was “put up” by my agent about an hour in.  The auctioneer offered it for fifty dollars.  No one bid.  He was about to pass it (not sell it due to no interest) when my agent bid the fifty dollars.  He sold it to her.  The clock was brought to her in her chair.  I waited five minutes then approached her, handed her sixty dollars in cash, picked up the tray lot holding the clock, walked out of the hall, put the clock in the passenger’s seat of my truck and drove home.  The next morning I took the clock out of the tray, reattached the brass, put the finial on its top and hung it up on the office wall. “It looks like it should be in a museum” my wife said.

The Crow's Nest Epilogue Blood Farm 10

Epilogue Blood Farm 10

            Not all of the contents of Blood Farm went off the end of the earth “as slick as a platter of greasy bacon at a hunting camp breakfast”.  An older gentleman at the third Uncle’s auction I visited supplied the greasy bacon image when defining what HE was hearing little birds tell him “about some estate”.  I hadn’t seen him in a while but we re-acquainted as we both started coming to “every auction”.  Or the preview at least.  I rarely stayed at the auction past the first half hour.

            A year into my vigilant patronage I was surprised at the preview to discern, across the hall and in the shadow of the back wall, the fire chief comprehensively examining four boxes of old Maine license plates.  I didn’t do or say anything except to weigh that his concentration was deep.  After loosing myself in the preview crowd while poking through box lot rubbish that I HOPED would be from Blood Farm but was not, I was patted on the back by the fire chief who opened conversation with “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

            Knowing that he’d never been here and I’d always been here since I last saw him I figured to play dumb was best so responded in aggressive jest that “I come up to BUY THE LICENCE PLATES.”

            A facial expression mix of rage, panic and disbelief froze the fire chiefs face and stuttered his voice. “I…”.

            I smiled at his face

            “CAME FOR THOSE” he finished.

            “I know.  I see you poking them over there.”

            “I CAME FOR THOSE.”

            “Yes, I see that”.

            “YOU DID TOO?”

            “NO.  You can have them.”

            “NO?  BUT YOU SAID I”

            “NO:  JUST… JOKING YOU”.

            “ME?”

            “Forget it”.

            “REALLY.  OK?”.

            “I haven’t seen you since the Blood Farm sale.”

            “THOSE ARE FROM THERE TOO.  HERE.  They’re selling them HERE.  I know them.  That’s them.  I know them once I looked in the boxes.

            “You know the license plates are from Blood Farm?  You saw them there?”

            “They were always there.  In the car shed by the barn.  They kept the car there.  All their cars always.  Always saved the plates.  Nailed them on the rafters.  All of them in order.  Every year ever.  NICE!”

            “In a shed.  I didn’t see them”.

            “COURSE NOT.  They were in the car shed.  I seen them first with my MOTHER.  I was LITTLE.  EVER since then I wanted THAT SHED.  Told my wife.  She says what would I do with it.  I told her I’d put it in the back yard and go and sit in it. Just sit in it.  She said I’m crazy.  But she don’t know”.

            “You want the whole shed?”

            “BEAUTIFUL.  I’d put the car in it.  It’s just like my dream of my old car garage with everything OLD that’s in it.  You know:  EVERYTHING.  They kept ALL their car stuff EVER in there.  Oil cans gas cans every light tires broken rims iron junk paint fixes even BATTERIES.  All NEAT STACKED.  GONE NOW.  IT’S ALL GONE.  They took it” he said gesturing toward the front of the hall.  “They TOOK IT.  AND LOCKED IT.  Couldn’t even SEE in.  It was NEVER LOCKED before.

            “Alice had a car?”

            “OH…. an old one.

            “She drove it?”

            “NOOO!”

            “It’s still there?”
            “NOOO!”

            “What?”

            “Oh… she sort of SOLD it”. 

            “Sold it?”

            “It’s still around.  If you know what I mean.”  He smiled at me. 

            I think I knew.  “What was it?”

            “Sixty-three (Ford) Galaxy 500 silver with red trims.” He said and then surveyed the hall.  “I’m gonna buy those PLATES.” he said above me as a sort of broadcast.

            I left him alone.  He bought the plates.  They made him pay.  He had the car too.  That was two dominos that didn’t fall off the edge of the earth.  But even he knew and said it; “It’s all gone now.  What he really loved and wanted; the whole car shed as it had been when he saw it with his mother WITH the car in it…:  After Alice died… and as she said “Then it is gone”.

            Before this meeting and… it is always hard to admit this stuff… a couple of weeks after the big auction I went … “JUST PASSING BY”… to that coastal dealer’s shop who had bought the telescope.  I fussed around his store, saw the telescope behind his desk waiting to be put out and carrying no price tag and …I fussed around the store some more.  Then I said directly “How much is that telescope?”

            He said “How about two twenty-five?  I just bought it” and handed it to me.  I opened it.  It had a maker’s name above “LONDON 1802” engraved on the brass.  I pretended to look it over and then said “OK I’ll buy it”.  The dealer looked at me holding it.  I turned slightly from him, held the telescope to my eye and said “PIRATES!”.  Then I lowered the scope and smiled at the dealer.  I figure he thought I was crazy.  To this day every now and then I open the telescope, hold it to my eye and say “PIRATES!”.  The telescope is displayed in plain sight.  No one is ever going to buy it.  It doesn’t actually work and… I paid way too much for it.

The Crow's Nest Epilogue Blood Farm 9

Epilogue Blood Farm 9

            The finality of THIS Blood Farm auction… took three hours longer.  This included eating my lunch by fetching a sandwich from the lunch box in the truck and standing at my post gobbling it.  It included the fire chief eating, eating and eating from his found food source including his gobbling of a large bowl of homemade chili.  It also included engaging small talk with a smattering of information burdened fellow dealers mulling about the sale (“They found a pair of portraits in a bedroom but they’re not here that I see”, etc.).  “I never went in the bedrooms” I reminded myself.  “Who would have the portraits?”  “Who ever found them first… and took action”.  That there could have been a pair of portraits of Alice’s ancestors; the true Captain Blood, that she slept beneath as they hung on her bedroom wall… was more than a “probable”.  Those notions joined the long line of falling dominoes and… enhanced the fall off at the edge of the earth to include a realization of just how LITTLE of the estate I had actually seen.

            The seven bid.  And bid.  Upon objects they should have.  And shouldn’t have.  They bought what they LIKED and did NOT buy as a comprehensive conquest of their ancestor’s heritage.  I didn’t care.  I didn’t even follow their bidder paddle waving floor fights with the hostile dealers.  I did see the desk “go”.  $3,500. plus premium.  It took about forty-five seconds.  Eventually lot 421 was purchased by the seven.  The purchase was enhanced, as I watched after the thirty- five dollar hammer drop, by the auctioneer glaring up to his rear-of-the-hall right with an expression that I translated as a “WHY DID YOU STOP BIDDING!!!?” grimace.  Maybe THEY ate the chili TOO?

            Soon after that lot the sister in charge began roaming the hall.  I watched, waited and engaged. 

            “You’ve done very well today.” I opened.

            “OH YES.  Everything.  Well.  Except a FEW.  They bid so HIGH”.

            “I saw the highboy and the desk.  Also the clock parts.  Hold on to those.  In fact you should get them out of here before they disappear.”

            “Disappear?”

            “Ah… get lost.  You don’t want to loose them”.  I realized as I spoke that they COULD get lost; the seven had bought many lots and there was … a lot of stuff loose on the floor… little of which I had seen anyone grimace over.

            “I think my husband has it” she said.  I said nothing more.  She looked directly at me.  “What do you thing of the desk?” she asked.

            “It’s very nice.” I said while going “Didn’t we already do this?” to myself.  She kept looking at me.

            “Do you know it has a secret hiding place in a drawer?”

            I looked at her face.  “Yes.” I said.

            “YOU DO?” she said.

            “Yes.  The center drawer”

            “Do you know there’s a PIRATE PAPER in there?” she asked

            “Oh yes; a slip”

            “You do NOT.” She said.

            “It has a drawing of a schooner and says Captain Blood this is wrote with my blood your old master”. I said clearly.

            “YOU DO!” she said and touched my arm.  “What do you think it MEANS?”

            “Means?  Really means?” I said.  “I’m sure… that is, I BELIEVE, it is the front leaf from a log or day book that Captain Blood’s old master wrote that on as a jest one day when visiting and finding only the Captain’s book and no captain at home.  The Captain tore it out and saved it in the secret cubby”.

            The sister was looking hard at me.  I sensed that she didn’t fully understand AND agree with my explanation.  “But he was a pirate.” She said.

            I took my queue.  “Of course.  They were ALL pirates along the coast.  But you shouldn’t say that to people.  They saw themselves as respectable merchants”.

            She looked at me and smiled.  “We’re going to have it FRAMED”.

            “Framed?  I’d just leave it in the desk.  It ties the desk to the Bloods.”

            She gave me a blank look.

            “Of course… it will look very nice framed.” I said as I mentally pushed the Blood Farm desk… of the edge of the earth.

The Crow's Nest Epilogue Blood Farm 8

Epilogue Blood Farm 8

            Uncle’s Auctions is …northeast out of Mechanic Falls (Maine) toward West Minot but one turns left halfway up then bares right after a bit and …keeps going to just when one is sure one is lost… to come upon a farm on the left with a hand-painted-in-white on an old board SIGN… on a stick by the road reading “UNCLE’S”.  The farm consists of an old Civil War era farm house connecting through an attached shed labyrinth to an equally old barn that has a companion but newer 1900’s barn to the left of it.  THIS barn is the “auction hall”.  A larger than usual dirt and mud parking area is before these barns.  On auction days a folding sign, again hand painted in white, is set up below the “UNCLE’S” sign and reads “AUCTION TODAY”.

            On those days not only is “someone there” but the farm yard is active with trucks, men, a few women and a local catering van.  On other days there is nothing in sight and no one… excepting the auctioneer’s wife inside the farm house watching television… is there.  “I CAN HAVE HIM CALL YOU LATER IF YOU WANT.” stated by the wife is what one gets if inquiring at the farm house on a non-auction day.  Uncle’s is, in short, a very, very low key, low profile, rural Maine family run auction company that has …weekly – bi-weekly – monthly “when we FEEL like it” auctions.  Locals follow Uncle’s.  A few out of area dealers do too.  That’s about it.

            ON an auction day beginning “after lunch” and before the 3:00 PM “pre-auction” preceding the 5:00 PM “auction”… local trucks with local men arrive and line up politely with their truck beds exposing the …treasure (read rubbish) they “HAVE BROUGHT TO SELL”… in the pre-auction WITH THE HOPE that Uncle himself will select a few “better” items to fill out his “auction” at five.  Rain or snow on the day of the auction diminishes “turn out” for the pre-auction.  Otherwise it’s a “GO” especially if by some FLUKE a rubbish load actually DOES HAVE “something good” and that sets of an ever growing crowd for the five o’clock auction AND at the catering van.  The following day, after a “something good” turned up at Uncle’s auction, Maine antiquarian gossip churns out “a hum in the trade” for the WHOLE WEEK.  Otherwise, one never hears ANYTHING about “Uncle’s”.

            I know of and about Uncle’s.  I have attended… or at least “pre-viewed”… the main auctions… sometimes.  I am in contact with dealers who “know all about it” (Uncle’s current or latest auction).  It is one of many similar auction companies in the state.  Do not under estimate them.  I do not.

            For the contents of Blood Farm… and its disappearance… Uncle’s is the key.  The contents of Blood Farm falls off the edge of the earth at Uncle’s.  It is the bottom rung on the ladder of Alice’s “then it is gone”.  It is a ladder of thievery.  The top rung is Mr. Lawyer.  He “HAS” Blood Farm through the mother’s estate (“trusted”) and it is retuned back to him after the trust expires… to be part of all of the rest of the funds in the estate… under his watch.  The second rung is Mr. Lawyer’s brought in pet auctioneer who… knows in seconds exactly the treasure trove he sees but says nothing and …down plays it all; “DON’T WORRY I’LL GET this rubbish filled fire trap ALL CLEANED OUT”.  HE begins a mental dance of musical chairs right away for there is simply too much there to “fail” meaning “to abscond with”.  His thievery is careful and selective.  He has his own crew to do the clean out.  They do their work unsupervised and their thievery is opportunist.  But the estate is SO big and SO full, he needs …trusted… help to cover ALL of the possible selective thievery.  Uncle’s uncle is… trusted.  HE is careful and selective TOO.  HE has a crew too.  THEY are opportunists TOO.  Little is said.  EVERYTHING… EVERY THING… is “cleaned out”.

            Two trucks before lunch everyday go into Uncle’s barns full and… one comes out empty and “goes back”.  That is filled and “goes to the coast”.  Meanwhile the crews …working alone and separated… “have opportunities” they take.  Uncle is there watching for opportunities himself and those go “into the truck”.  HE watches the unloading of the trucks in the barns …as best he can.  The pet auctioneer is “trusted” with Uncle’s to “sell that stuff” they truck to his barns.  But:  There is soooo much stuff… it’s hard to watch all of it…  all the time… especially if … anyone of them didn’t “see it” to begin with.  The auctioneer has his hands full, Uncle has his handful and… the crew has THEIR HANDS, pockets, pants, boots and hats FULL TOO.  Just like rows of dominos falling down toward the edge of the earth, the contents of Blood Farm… vanishes.  Oh… there are piles of Blood Farm stuff here, there and all over… should anyone ask anyone.  But no one does and it wouldn’t amount to anything anyway because …no one actually knows what was actually in Blood Farm except Alice and… she didn’t write anything down (that anyone has ever seen) AND …is dead.

            I did start previewing Uncle’s auctions right away.  I continued that for two years and now have slacked off.  They sold plenty from Blood Farm slowly, steadily and quietly.  I slacked off because they slacked off.  It’s over.  These days Blood Farm contents is scattered all over the state “for sale” in “antiques shops”.  It just doesn’t say “Blood Farm” on it.  As I stood with the fire chief… who was chewing down his last donut… all of the above and its probability passes through my mind.  I understood what the fire chief had just told me …very well.